The Hairy Bikers' Restoration Road Trip

BBC Two, Air date: August 2013

The Hairy Bikers: Restoration Road Trip followed Si and Dave around the UK as they rediscovered, and helped to fix, a number of lost treasures of the industrial age.

The Bikers will travel the length and breadth of the UK to meet those with a passion for both keeping the skills of their ancestors alive, restoring the machines that kept Britain’s agriculture, transport, and industry moving. Si and Dave learn how to re-forge the wheel of a steam train, renovate rusted cogs and master hot riveting, uncovering secrets of their own past to get a glimpse of what life was like for their forefathers.

“The British Isles was and is the home of engineering pioneers who have designed and built amazing machines that change people’s lives,” Si explained.

“Uncovering their stories will be an unforgettable adventure and it means a lot to us as both our families have strong ties to industry.”

“Si’s grandfather worked in the pits as a winchman and my family were ship workers in Barrow-in-Furness, or the ‘Chicago of the North’ as it was known,” added Dave.

“My mum kept links to the shipyards working as a crane driver and rediscovering more about my family’s past will be an emotional journey as I’ll get a glimpse of what their lives were really like.”

Episode one

The Bikers begin their tour of industrial restoration projects by joining some ex-miners who are meticulously restoring Pleasley Colliery in Derbyshire. There is personal passion for Si as he helps to restore asteam winding engine, as his grandfather was a winder.

Dave helps to celebrate 150 years of the London Underground by putting Met 1, the tube's oldest working steam train, through its paces as it prepares to carry passengers a century after it went out of service.

The Bikers also help fire up a barn engine on a Hampshire farm for the first time in 60 years and discover that the fairground was the last word in Victorian fun.

It is full steam ahead in Wiltshire as they help rebuild an early traction engine before seeing how they revolutionised farming. In Derbyshire, the duo tackle a hundred-year-old cotton spinning mule that has laid dormant for decades, and attempt to weave their own Hairy Biker cloth. And in Cheshire, they restore a rare barge, once used to transport coal on Britain's canals.

Episode three

Working on the massive job to reconstruct steam train 'The Night Owl', the Bikers forge a steel wheel taller than they are for the biggest locomotive restoration in Britain. Dave's first job was in a steelworks, and so was his dad's, so he's going back to his roots.

The boys also help with the oldest steam engine still on-site in the world, sending Dave down into the cylinder to check out its condition after 60 years of neglect.